


beholding the creator

by gridgore



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, F/M, Not Beta Read, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Time Skip, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Slow Burn, first fic in like 5 years so go easy on me, platonic pre-ts, romantic post-ts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:07:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28689147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gridgore/pseuds/gridgore
Summary: His teacher was, in one word, enigmatic. Impossible, even.
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth & Claude von Riegan, My Unit | Byleth/Claude von Riegan
Kudos: 12





	beholding the creator

His teacher was, in one word, enigmatic. Impossible, even.

Claude had never heard of the Ashen Demon before meeting the woman herself, but immediately understood the name as she introduced the demon within her in the heat of battle. Formerly quiet, reserved, communicating in nods that turned into an almost organic understanding of swordsmanship, and an unpredictable, alien way of manoeuvring around enemies. Claude knew that wasn’t all to her character, but still found himself mystified at new occurrences. It was strange to see her smile. Enchanting, but terrifying.

The funny thing is, that was the easiest aspect of his professor to understand. She was a 3-dimensional person, with multiple layers to her personality, and he’d be a fool to believe that the Ashen Demon was the only layer. But the sword that was almost connected to her arm at the flesh would be easier to understand if she could even remember being taught. No one is born with that level of innate skill, but Byleth tells him earnestly that she cannot recall ever being taught. She also cannot recall her age, or much of her life. How long had she been a mercenary, what has she seen or experienced? She had no idea. Not a clue. There was a chance that she was lying, but Claude was awfully intimate with the art, being quite adept himself, and he couldn’t see a trace of deceit across her stupidly open face. That was another thing- her body language. She held herself so openly and honestly, like a small child. But that honest expression betrayed no emotion. Did she even feel? Was she even living?  
Ever since coming to the monastery Claude found himself wracked with constant migraines as a result of dwelling on the woman for far too long. He absolutely despised not understanding things, and continuously tried to pry information out of someone that clearly just didn’t know anything. He needed desperately to find someone who did know, and he had a slight inkling that the church knew more than they let on, but prying information from them would be even harder than getting it from the professor herself; more than impossible. Still, Claude has always been one for the unconventional.

At present, Claude sits front and centre of one of Byleth’s seminars. The Golden Deer spent hardly any time at all within the classroom, their professor far more adept in practical demonstrations than academic study, so this is a welcome reprieve for his sore muscles. He absently twirls his quill between his fingers, staring off into the middle distance. The professor occupies his mind more than he cares to openly admit; transfixed on a puzzle that he just can't solve.  
“Claude.”  
At the sound of his name, Claude found said professor leaning in front of his desk, looking irritated. “Have you been listening to a word I’ve been saying?”  
“Er, sorry teach. Got a little lost in my thoughts there.”  
“A little? I dismissed the class 2 minutes ago.”  
Oh, well look at that. The classroom is completely empty, yet he still sits there with his open textbook, drumming his fingers on the table. He has the decency to look rightfully embarrassed. “Oh uh, oops. Again, sorry teach. Not myself today.”  
“Something bothering you?”  
Claude considers her for a moment. “I can handle it.”  
Byleth sighs, taking her glasses from her nose to rub between her eyes. “I just need you to be alert. We have a big mission coming in two weeks and I don’t want you to get distracted, especially on the field.”  
“I can promise you I’ll be ready for the mission, todays lecture was just-“  
“Boring?”  
“Well, I wouldn’t say boring. You just... lost me I guess. Through no fault of your own, I’m just easily distracted these days.”  
“Do you need me to make any changes? Do you engage with other styles of teaching more? Would having the class participate a little more help you stay focused or anything like that?”  
Claude laughs kindly. Yeah, that’s just the kind of person his professor is. “It’s honestly fine Teach, I’ll be right as rain later. I’m just having an off day, you don’t need to change anything.”  
“Well, we’ll still have to go over this material another time, unfortunately. When you’re a bit more awake.”  
“Over tea then?”  
“I’m not one to turn down a tea invitation. Just let me know when before we depart for the tower, yes? We’re going to need you at your best.”  
“Yes ma’am!” He mocks a salute, and she smiles kindly, readjusting the files gathered under her arms before she strides from the classroom, leaving Claude at his seat. The minute she's gone, his smile drops. He still has absolutely no idea what to think of her. Their conversations betray absolutely nothing, she seems so completely and utterly normal. But the way Rhea watches her with something that can only be described as divine reverence...Claude lays his head against his desk. He's never going to figure her out, is he? He’ll drive himself absolutely mad over it.

-

Oh, and how the mystery grows. He watches his professor wield a glowing heroes relic; the sword of the creator, the very same wielded by Nemesis, the king of liberation. How could she possibly bear the crest of flames? And how could she wield the sword when there is no crest stone to be found in its centre? The way Rhea smiled when Byleth returned clutching the relic told him so much yet so little at the same time. Just who in the hell was his teacher?

He was starting to doubt all that he knew of his teacher. It was becoming difficult to meet her eyes at times, and he could see that it hurt her, but he simply couldn’t rid himself of his doubts. What if next week he found out she was the daughter of a dragon and was actually 5000 years old or something? He couldn’t help but feel betrayed, even if it wasn’t her fault.  
But at the same time... Curiosity clawed at his throat. What more did this incredible, impossible woman have to offer? Would he ever fully understand her, or would he be digging for the rest of his life? All Claude had were questions without answers and they seemed to be doubling by the minute. He wanted to know everything, but the idea of it just escaping him was... alluring. Mystery drove him nuts, but it was almost an addiction. He loathed seeing an answer hanging above him, just out of his reach, taunting him. But at the same time... Well, Claude couldn’t deny that he loved a good tease, a chase. That’s what Byleth was, though he might’ve gotten slapped had he told her those exact words.

He sees the glowing sword in his dreams, but it always retreats before he can touch the hilt. It extends its spine, slithering away from him with all the sinister likeness of a snake. Teach herself seems weak in her grip on the sword, like it’s ready to slip from her grasp at any second. Maybe she’s disgusted by it; the way it glows and pulsates like a living thing. A sword is a tool, but the sword of the creator might as well be a human being. He wonders if Byleth feels out of control. Wonders if the church has wrestled away her grip on her own reality and is guiding her down a path already paved and preened ready for her, set long before she even arrived at the monastery.  
An unprecedented wave of emotion flows over his body at the thought. He cannot place the exact nature of it, but it makes his heart pull out of his chest. Makes his stomach turn. He doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want her to follow the whims of the church just because Rhea insists on keeping her on a tight leash. He wants her to walk a path she’s chosen, to walk with conviction and desire. That powerful stride he witnesses as she enters battle, a slight sway of the hips with her sword posed over her shoulders, staring dead into the heat of battle and continuing on no matter how thick that heat gets. He wants her to walk that way, not as a woman bound at the hands and feet, head ducked to watch the road pass by beneath her boots, continuing only to please the hand that leads her. No, he wants her to bite the hand that feeds her. He wants her to pull it between her teeth and shake like a mad dog. 

He wonders if she has the appetite for it.

-

Claude didn’t know much about Jeralt. He admired his strength just as much as the next man- the Bladebreaker was renowned. But he has no idea what to say to his teacher now. What words of comfort could a stranger to Jeralt offer?  
He catches her as she heads back from the training grounds, stopping her with a gentle hand on the shoulder. “Heya, Teach. Good to see you out and about.” She nods, not meeting his gaze. “I wanted to talk to you.” He said softly, voice conveying sorrow. “But first I thought we oughta get some food. If the dining hall is too noisy I can grab us a couple plates while you wait outside, then we can go somewhere quiet? How long has it been since you’ve eaten?” Claude tries and fails not to bombard her with questions, but he twitches with the urge to soothe her wound and divert her from self-destruction.  
“I’m not hungry.” She murmurs, retreating into herself.  
“Please, Teach.” He begs so she’ll meet his eyes. “For me.”  
She sighs, unwrapping her fingers from around her arms. “Don’t get anything heavy. I won’t be able to keep it down.”

-

It’s a cold, foggy morning at the dock. The water is still and lifeless, like Byleth’s sorrowful shadow silences the powers that be themselves. The steam from the soup in her hands is one of the only things keeping her from frosting over; that and the warm body lingering close to her side. “I haven’t lost a parent yet, so I can’t really begin to empathise. I’m sorry if I’m bad at it.”  
“It’s okay. I don’t even know if what I’m feeling is typical.”  
“How do you feel?”  
“Just...” She picked at her cuticles. “Disappointed. And angry.” Claude nods to encourage her to carry on. “I guess I’m mad at him for never explaining anything to me. Always making excuses, and dying with his secrets. He’s never been honest with me, and I can’t help but feel like...” She tucks her knees up into her chest, leaning her chin on them. “Like we could’ve been closer if I’d understood more. It drove a wedge between us, and I’m mad at him for ruining that opportunity.” Her voice breaks a little. “I just wanted to talk to him, but he took that away from me.” Claude isn’t sure how to reply. He stares out onto the still water of the pond, fish retreated far beneath the visible depth.  
“It’s okay to not feel perfectly... storybook, I guess, about this. Grief is complicated, just the same as the people who it affects.”  
“I just wish I could go back and shake him by the shoulders until he told me.”  
“If only we had the ability.”  
It passes by so fast that Claude almost misses it, but something deeply guilty flashes across the wetness of Byleth’s eyes for a second before fading behind her eyelids. It spreads to her face like a drop of black ink in a water pot. “If only.”  
Claude fights back the questions welling in his throat. 

-

Teach, reborn like the phoenix, stands before their class, pacing the stone in front of the blackboard, explaining something important that not a single student is listening to. No, they’re watching the curl of her mint green hair around her cheekbones and the matching shine of her eyes, flicking across the pages of the textbook she holds in one hand. She’d been swallowed whole by a mass of darkness, then sliced her way out of the belly of the beast not a moment later, re-emerging like the light behind her eyes had changed. And it had. Physical appearances beside, Teach holds herself differently, like she’s carrying an invisible weight upon her shoulders. She seems smaller, more alert, and shockingly tense. Everyone noticed, and once they noticed they couldn’t look away.  
Byleth pauses her pacing, looking out onto the class of Golden Deer. “Everything okay?” Various noises of affirmation sound through the room and Byleth wrinkles her nose. “Then tell me what I was just talking about.” The class falls deathly silent. Hilda looks at the board, throwing out an educated guess. “You were talking about longbows?”  
“Yes, 40 minutes ago I was.”  
Claude crosses and uncrosses his legs nervously as Hilda chirps a quick apology, but Byleth’s searching stare is putting them all on edge. She sighs and it softens. She moves back to brace her hands against her desk, resting her behind on the edge, still facing the class. “I’m sorry. Maybe we should talk about what happened with... This.” She gestures to her hair and face vaguely. Claude nods, to himself mostly, and leans forward. Ignatz beats him to the punch. “When you were... Taken. Where did you go? I- I mean, was it a physical place? Something else?” He asks, nervously, hand shaking in the air. Teach considers the question, answering after a few moments of contemplation. “I didn’t get to see much of the realm I was taken to. Because I was pulled into a... relative safety.”  
“By what? Who?” Claude demands, failing to hide his enthusiasm.  
She sighs, scratching her jaw with one hand and retreating a little into herself. “The goddess.” She says, plainly.  
Claude could have choked on his own tongue.

-

Their own professor, harbouring the goddess of Fódlan inside her mind. Claude would love to say that he didn’t believe a word of it, but he found himself experiencing the opposite. Sothis, huh?  
The Golden Deer doesn’t seem to know how to act around her now; Claude included. People like Marianne and Ignatz haven’t stopped bowing, excusing themselves and averting their eyes since the news broke. It’s clear that their behaviour is putting Teach on edge, who’s definitely not used to getting treated with such... respect? Fear? By her students. And Claude can admit that he hasn’t been particularly subtle with his curiosity himself, badgering her with questions after every single lesson. At night he retreats to the library, reading every single relevant volume that he can get his hands on, but finds himself turning up barely anything.  
All the church-sanctioned education material only speaks of the goddess with pure reverence and Nemesis with pure hatred. Every tale is told like a bedtime story, where good triumphs evil. Additionally, the church’s indoctrination seems to be going absolutely splendidly, based off how everyone reacts when he begins asking around about tales of the goddess. They all repeat the same material; ‘our great Goddess’, ‘slayer of evil and defender of Fódlan’, ‘waiting for her glorious return’, etcetera, etcetera. If his teacher harbours the goddess, then this would be the ‘glorious return’ the church members speak of. Doesn’t seem so glorious to him. His teacher is a talented swordswoman, but a mercenary at heart. She has immense physical powers, but no knowledge beyond mortal understanding. Nevertheless, Rhea certainly seems blindingly pleased. He catches her watching Teach often from the window, once moving behind her and subtly carding her fingers through the now mint green locks. His teacher had span around in question but received only a smile from the archbishop in lieu of an answer. It sent a shiver up Claude’s spine.  
He drums his fingers atop the leather cover of the church’s history of Fódlan, engulfed by a single candles light, dripping wax onto the library desk. He’s read this volume cover to cover since arriving at the monastery but it’s frighteningly vague and short, containing nothing that hasn’t already been taught in class. All he knows at this point is he’s uneasy, and no amount of research seems to calm his nerves.  
With a groan, Claude gets up from his chair and stretches his back. He puts out the candle with his fingertips and slots the book back into place on the shelf. Maybe come morning someone will magically have answers, but for now he decides to sleep.

-

“I am going to be entering the Holy Tomb and receiving a revelation from the Goddess at the end of this month. The archbishop has requested that you all join me. She will also be in attendance.” Byleth tells the Deer, unsure of her own words.  
“What kind of revelation?” Claude probes, nails digging into the wood of the classroom desk.  
“Lady Rhea told me that Seiros received a revelation after being gifted her powers, so I’m following example. I’m not quite sure what will happen.”  
The class is unanimously confused but agree to join the professor in the tomb. There’s a lump in Claude’s throat that he can’t quite swallow.  
“Alright, let’s move outside onto the training grounds. Today we’re going to be covering some advanced formations, and don’t look at me like that Hilda.”

-

Byleth breathes slowly in and out, matching the pace of her heels clicking against the polished stone floor. The tomb is cold and utterly gigantic, with a high arching roof mirroring the cathedral. “I know it’s a tomb but I think I forgot about all the… tombs that would be involved.” Raphael remarks, backing away from one nearby. Hilda nods and whispers quietly to Claude. “It’s totally creepy! I can’t believe you sneaked down here.”  
“I never actually got in.” Claude whispers back, eyeing the platform that lowered them down. “I couldn’t operate that weird mechanism, it wouldn’t budge.” The group begins ascending the steps, Claude sweeping his hand over the railing and silently remarking the lack of dust.  
“This is where the goddess who created this world was laid to rest, along with her children.”  
The top of the stairs open up to a large balcony overlooking the tombs, and in the centre sits a stone throne, perfectly clean. Claude catches Byleth tense and gape, and he turns to study it closely. “That’s one uncomfortable throne- ow!” Claude remarks just as Lorenz hits him in the arm.  
“Can you please be quiet, this is serious!”  
Byleth steps towards it, shadowed by the archbishop. It seems like she didn’t even hear their bickering. “It is said that our creator- the goddess Sothis- sat upon this very throne.” The archbishop tells her, eyes soft. “Professor… Do you recognise this throne?”  
Wordless, Byleth nods, and Lady Rhea gasps. “So long… I have waited so very long for this day.” That uncomfortable twist returns to Claude’s stomach and he steps closely behind his teacher, fingers twitching with the urge to reach out to her. “Sit upon the throne. I have no doubt you will be gifted a revelation from the Goddess.”  
“Teach-“ Claude calls out gently, but Byleth is already stepping up to the throne. She feels the armrests with an unreadable expression, and then turns to sit on it, as comfortable as if she was at her desk.  
Lady Rhea clasps her hands together and waits anxiously for the revelation. The tomb is devastatingly quiet, and Byleth breathes deep. Many seconds pass in the tense silence. Lady Rhea’s hands drop to her side, taking in a harsh, almost sobbing gasp. “It was supposed to be but a step away… What could possibly be missing?”  
Suddenly, the scrabbling footsteps of Hilda catch everyone’s attention. “I don’t mean to disturb you, but some uninvited guests have arrived.”  
Lady Rhea turns furiously, fleeing down the stairs and the group rushes to follow her. Byleth shakes her head and moves quickly from the throne, following along as Claude falls into step beside her. To think that for 5 years, that would be one of the final times Claude would walk beside his teacher, descending the steps of the Holy Tomb, watching the panic rise within her throat, to meet fate at the bottom of the stairs, perhaps where she was always doomed to be.  
  



End file.
